[reportlab-users] Getting rid of "Helvetica"

Michael Geddert reportlab-users@reportlab.com
Tue, 10 Aug 2004 13:30:13 +0200


Robin Becker wrote:

>>
>> <*snip*>
>>
>
> Are you referring to the standard font. That comes built in and costs 
> little or nothing (there's a standard pdf fonts dictionary called 
> 'BasicFonts'). So far as I know Helvetica is mentioned in canvas.py as 
> an 'initial font'. I'm not the expert on that bit of code and Andy is 
> away on holiday right now. If you preferred to set another standard 
> font as 'initial' I'm sure that could be accomplished fairly easily.
>
> Can you explain why you want to remove Helvetica?

Sure !

We are creating PDFs on the fly with Reportlab for a big customer project.
 From time to time, our PDFs smash the printing machines in our customers
prepress centre.
We did some research and it all points down to the included-but-not-used
"helvetica" Font. Anyway, the outages in our customer prepress centre is 
*not*
an issue with the toolkit, it is entirely due to their specific setup,we 
just need a way to work around that.

BTW, our project doesn't involve a single standard font, all fonts are 
special and "handmade" by our customer.

So, should I just empty the BasicFonts-Dictionary and Helvetica would be 
gone ?
That would be too easy, wouldn't it...

What would be the *best* way to go ?

Regards,
Michael


-- 
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Michael Geddert

Arche Netvision GmbH
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26382 Wilhelmshaven

Tel.: 04421-916351
Fax:  04421-916444
Url:  www.arche.ag
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